


Strength and Courage

by knight_of_thyme (ravenic)



Series: HSWC 2014 [15]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Homestuck Shipping World Cup 2014, In the Veil, Meteorstuck, One-Sided Attraction, One-sided Pale Attraction, Pale Break-ups, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Sober Gamzee Makara, Team Moirallegiance 2014, break-ups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-13 23:49:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5721676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenic/pseuds/knight_of_thyme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Kanaya♦Karkat – “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” - Lao Tzu</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strength and Courage

You never wanted this to happen. Gamzee was supposed to be your responsibility; you were supposed to take care of him.

But nobody could have done anything about what happened. Lack of sopor plus highblood instability ended with Gamzee becoming sober at last, killing in a murderous bloodlust, and up until now he had been gone somewhere in the vents of the lab, hiding where the newly-alive Kanaya couldn’t hunt him down, no matter where she looked.

Until now.

Because now your (former?) moirail is standing before you, his paint smudged and smeared, the scars from Nepeta’s claws tearing ugly indigo trails across his face. He is smiling, but he looks confused. You can (could) read him like nobody else ever could. But this isn’t the Gamzee you know. This isn’t your Gamzee.

This is a monster.

Kanaya stands between the two of you, facing your moirail. Your former moirail? You don’t know anymore. Her chainsaw is in her hands and her stance suggests no doubt as to whether she will use it should the clown take a single step towards you.  
You never thought the phrase “incandescent with rage” would be literally applicable. Her glow is the only light in the room, but it’s all you need to see them.

One moirail of Karkat Vantas against the other. Murderer versus murderer, but who isn’t, in the end?

You had thought Kanaya dead. Doc Scratch had warned you, but you, idiot that Past You had been, had ignored him. You had turned your back on the body, and you had fled. And so you had gone on thinking Kanaya dead, even as she rose and drank fuchsia blood and hunted down her killer, and then the other.

She had saved you. You don’t know what you would have done without her. It took a painfully short time for the two of you to find each other pale as pale. You had never known what it was like to be truly cared for – your moirallegiance with Gamzee had been mostly you looking after him. Her moirallegiance with Vriska had been as fractured as any of the blueblood’s relationships, and she had never known what a true diamond felt like. Neither had you. Then you fell in love with her, and she fell in love with you. She was still hurting over Vriska (who wasn’t?), and you were still in shock over Gamzee (who wouldn’t be), and your two broken diamonds gravitated towards each other until they became a whole together.

But Gamzee wasn’t dead. And you should have known that this would happen sooner or later.

“I have no wish to kill you before your former moirail. Leave now and I will let you go, this time, and hunt you alone.” Kanaya’s voice is flat, but you can feel the tension radiating from her. You can’t move, can’t speak, can’t breathe.

They are perhaps the two most powerful trolls left in the universe – not that that’s a big pool to draw from at this point – although both keep it well hidden. One steeped in sopor and buried under one-wheeled devices and horns, the other wrapped in elegance and voiced in verbosity. You were never entirely fooled by either of them, but you had let yourself imagine, let yourself forget, and now look what’s happening.

“Who said anythin’ ’bout former, sister? That right there is my pale brother, and you’re gonna move over an’ give us our reunion, OR YOU’RE GONNA GET SMASHED TO PRETTY JADE SLIME.”

Kanaya glances at you. It’s been a long-standing debate whether Gamzee was watching your little group or not. Apparently no. He doesn’t know about your moirallegiance with Kanaya. He doesn’t know your diamond with him shattered the moment Equius stopped breathing and Nepeta’s blood stained the floor. So you have to tell him.

You have to break up with your blood-maddened moirail, right now, with no preparation, in front of the one person on this gog-forsaken rock you respect at all, who is also the person you are pale for instead of this murdertroll who replaced your old friend.

You don’t know if you can do it. But then you look at Kanaya. She is standing still as stone and just as unmovable, and you know that she would willingly die for you. Somehow, that thought – or maybe it’s the thought of her actually dying – is enough to make you move.

You step forward. You’re trembling, just barely, and Kanaya’s eyes watch you like a predatory avian as you move past her, slowly to keep either of them from startling. You know you’re putting yourself between two very dangerous forces, a tiny crab creeping between a razor-fanged green serpent and a rabid jackal, but you have to do it.

“Gamzee.” Your voice is shaking, but you force it steady and continue. “This has to stop. I can’t… I can’t help you anymore. I tried. I tried so _hard_ , Gamzee, but you… you aren’t you anymore. You aren’t the troll I fell in love with. You killed our friends. This has to end.”

He looks confused. For a moment, just the tiniest flash of a second, it’s _his_ eyes, gazing at you, and then it’s gone, replaced by the madness. “What’re you talking about, Karbro? We’re BEST MOTHERFUCKING FRIENDS, AIN’T WE?”

It takes more effort than anything in your life for you to whisper, “No.”

Rage. He is furious. He is going to kill you. “WHAT THE MOTHERFUCKING FUCK DO YOU MEAN, ‘NO?’ YOU MUTANT LITTLE TRAITOR, I’M GOING TO RIP YOUR HEAD OFF AND PAINT THE WALLS WITH YOUR DISGUSTING FILTHY –”

And then Kanaya is between you again, chainsaw raised and roaring with hunger. “Karkat has told you what he needed to. My previous statement still stands. Leave now.”

His insane stare moves to her. “It’s you, ain’t it? You’re the MOTHERFUCKING BITCH WHAT STOLE MY DIAMOND. I’m going to kill you, too. I’M GOING TO –”

A tiny movement, and he stops. You are suddenly reminded that your moirail is the person who died, came back, cut her killer in half, kicked a blood-faced murderclown in the nuts and threw him off a cliff. She is deadly with that chainsaw, and Gamzee is threatening the thing most precious to her.

Even a mad clown would back down from that.

Gamzee’s words are reduced to a growl, and you watch, astonished, as he turns tail and takes off. True to her word, Kanaya does not move an inch, although you can _feel_ her need to chase him, hunt him, bring him to justice for the things he has done.

But she doesn’t. Instead, she turns to you. “Are you all right?” she says, so softly you can barely hear her. You open your mouth to respond, and find that, for the first time in your entire life, words have failed you.

Glowing arms wrap around you, solid and stable and _alive_. “Let’s go,” she whispers in your ear, dead-quiet, and you can only nod.

You have lost a love, but you have another to hold you together. It will be okay. For now, enveloped in undead light, you let yourself pretend. It will have to be enough.


End file.
